I moved into a thin building cramped between two others on a narrow street behind the Royal Theatre. I lived there with three floors of young women, each of us in simply appointed rooms, only those facing the road with windows. Originally for actresses, it also housed those like me, who worked in high-end shops, and a couple of girls who modelled clothing. The girls who had been there longest had the front rooms, if they wanted them, with the understanding that the rest of us would crowd toward the windows, jostle to feel the sun on our skin through glass. In warm weather, we would push panes open, dangle things out the window – scarves, garters, even our hair, loosed from pins, as we leaned into the street – until we were reprimanded as though we were children. No men were permitted in th
